Respond to your secondary school offer

Receiving your offer

Your child will be offered one school place only. 

The offer may, or may not, be for one of your preferred schools. This is because the allocation process is based solely on home to school distance.

If you applied online, we’ll email your offer during the evening of 3 March 2025.

If you applied on a paper form, we’ll post your offer letter by first class post on 3 March 2025. You’ll probably receive the letter on 4 March, but it may take longer.

If your letter has not arrived in the post by 6 March 2025, you can phone us to find out about your offer. Do not phone us before then.

Responding to your offer

You must respond to your offer by 17 March 2025. 

If you do not respond by then, we’ll withdraw the offer unless there are exceptional circumstances.

If your child is offered a place at one of your preferred schools, we expect you to accept the offer. If you do not want to accept it, you must let us know as soon as possible by emailing school-admissions@royalgreenwich.gov.uk

Accept or reject the offer by:

You cannot respond verbally.

If you reject the offer, we’ll ask you what alternative arrangements you’re making for your child's education.

Waiting lists

We’ll automatically add your child’s name to the waiting list for:

  • any school you ranked higher than the school you’re offered
  • all your preferred schools if you do not receive an offer from any of them

If you do not want your child's name added to a waiting list, let us know by emailing school-admissions@royalgreenwich.gov.uk

We maintain waiting lists until 31 August.

If you’d like your child's name to remain on a waiting list for the following school year, you’ll need to make a new application from 1st July.

Check a school admissions waiting list

Appealing a school place decision

You can appeal the decision not to offer your child a place at any of the schools you applied for. 

The appeal decision is not influenced by your acceptance of the school place you’ve been offered.

If your appeal is unsuccessful, you should accept the school offered.

Find out more about how to appeal a school admissions decision

Fair access to school places

We have a Fair Access Protocol to ensure we find and offer a school place to any child who is unable to secure one through the normal admissions process. This is particularly important for the most vulnerable children. 

We want to minimise the amount of time any child is out of school.

 Find out more about fair access to school places